The Biomechanics of Simple Steatosis and Steatohepatitis

A paper co-authored by Professor Kevin Parker and graduate student Juvenal Ormachea, undergraduate student Hyunwoo Kim (UR Department of Biomedical Engineering), Dr. Michael Drage (UR Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine), and Doctor Zaegyoo Hah of Samsung Medison Co. Ltd. titled "The biomechanics of simple steatosis and steatohepatitis" will appear in the May 2018 issue of Physics in Medicine and Biology, and can be found here. The work presented in this article examined the rheological models that are capable of capturing the dominant viscoelastic behaviors associated with fat and inflammation in the liver, and quantified the resulting changes in shear wave speed and viscoelastic parameters. Theoretical results were shown to match measurements in phantoms and animal studies reported in the literature. These results are useful for better design of elastographic studies of fatty liver disease and steatohepatitis, potentially leading to improved diagnosis of these conditions.